Week 5 – Kevin Gaboury

It’s hard to believe we’re already in week five of the first term of our first year of graduate school, but there it is. As I take a quick break from hammering out my midterm paper, I reflect on all the interesting things we’ve seen and learned so far in this class.
After working as a reporter for five years and becoming extremely disillusioned with the mass media (specifically newspapers), this class has rekindled what I love about journalism. Not saying I’ve had a change of heart of a change of heart, but it’s nice to be reminded of where you’ve been and where you’re going, if that makes sense.
So for the midterm, I’m concentrating on the two projects that have had biggest impact on me so far this term: Witness and The Interview Project. Both are brilliant in their own way, and while completely different in their missions, they are more similar than they appear on the surface. I’ll be critically looking at both as examples of participatory media and exploring them through the lenses of multimedia, interactivity and speadability. There are some things Witness does more effectively than The Interview Project, for example, Witnesses’ YouTube channel is a huge advantage for spreadability. But in terms of video quality and general aesthetics, The Interview Project knocks it out of the park (don’t worry, Helen, I won’t be using sports cliches like this in my paper). So far, it has been an interesting exercise in really looking what makes a media project work, what doesn’t, and truly analyzing its effectiveness as a whole.

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5 comments to Week 5 – Kevin Gaboury

  • lpaters5@uoregon.edu

    I am using Witness as well. I think I am going to juxtaposition it with the Lunch Love Community project. There are some interesting differences between the two. The user facilitates their own experience for Witness, whether watching, uploading, sharing, or all. Children do not usually control their own nutritional health or school programs – the action must come from schools, teachers, administrators, and community members who want to help them. Many of the actual participants (children) are not tweeting, blogging, or sharing their experience online – it is done more by the people behind the scenes who are facilitating action. On Witness, the user has more control with developing and sharing their project. I’m still grappling with just how to compare these two, but I’m glad we’ll have time on Saturday to discuss and share.

  • kblack7@uoregon.edu

    I had a very similar experience with my time in a newsroom. It is very easy to become bogged down by the media giant’s idea of ‘newsworthy’ coverage and therefore cause you to lose sight of why you got into the field in the first place. It is wonderful that our program has revived a sense of journalistic passion for you. I would have to say that I am also amazed and enthralled at the completely different way I view, understand, and adapt to media now.

  • awoodard@uoregon.edu

    I wonder if you could use that reignited passion to try and explore why you liked the Interview Project so much? I think spreadability has a lot to do with how a project grips its audience (which will compel them to share it), and maybe there are specific aspects of the Interview Project that you can link to your own interest and our readings on spreadability.

  • banders3@uoregon.edu

    I think there’s a stickiness angle here you could take on with the Interview Project.

    One thing that helped me to kind of concentrate on the concepts and projects that we’ve discussed has been to talk to someone else about it and explain it to them. I had a family birthday party thing I went to today and one of my sisters was asking me about what I was doing in my classes so I started telling her. It was interesting looking back on it what I said and how I kind of framed it. At least for me, it made me really think about the ideas of Spreadability and Stickiness and some of the other projects we’ve read about and viewed.

  • Daniel Oxtav

    wow It’s evident that you’re engaged in a meaningful exploration of what makes a media project successful, and I’m confident that your paper will offer valuable insights into the intricacies of participatory media. Best of luck with the remainder of your research and analysis—I look forward to hearing more about your findings! Thanks

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